Gunmans Reckoning

by Brand, Max

  "This business has to be gotten through quickly," he went on. "One meeting with Jack Landis will be enough."

  She wondered why he set his jaw when he said this, but he was wondering how deeply the colonel's ward had fallen into the clutches of Nelly Lebrun. If that first meeting did not bring Landis to his senses, what followed? One of two things. Either the girl must stay on in The Corner and try her hand with her fiance again, or else the final brutal suggestion of the colonel must be followed; he must kill Landis. It was a cold-blooded suggestion, but Donnegan was a cold-blooded man. As he looked at the girl, where she sat on the boulder, he knew definitely, first and last, that he loved her, and that he would never again love any other woman. Every instinct drew him toward the necessity of destroying Landis. There was his stumbling block. But what if she truly loved Landis?

  He would have to wait in order to find that out. And as he stood there with the sun shining on the red stubble on his face he made a resolution the more profound because it was formed in silence: if she truly loved Landis he would serve her hand and foot until she had her will.

  But all he said was simply: "I shall be back before it's dark."

  "I shall be comfortable here," replied the girl, and smiled farewell at him.

  And while Donnegan went down the slope full of darkness he thought of that smile.

  The Corner spread more clearly before him with every step he made. It was a type of the gold-rush town. Of course most of the dwellings were tents--dog tents many of them; but there was a surprising sprinkling of wooden shacks, some of them of considerable size. Beginning at the very edge of the town and spread over the sand flats were the mines and the black sprinkling of laborers. And the town itself was roughly jumbled around one street. Over to the left the main road into The Corner crossed the wide, shallow ford of the Young Muddy River and up this road he saw half a dozen wagons coming, wagons of all sizes; but nothing went out of The Corner. People who came stayed there, it seemed.

  He dropped over the lower hills, and the voice of the gold town rose to him. It was a murmur like that of an army preparing for battle. Now and then a blast exploded, for what purpose he could not imagine in this school of mining. But as a rule the sounds were subdued by the distance. He caught the muttering of many voices, in which laughter and shouts were brought to the level of a whisper at close hand; and through all this there was a persistent clangor of metallic sounds. No doubt from the blacksmith shops where picks and other implements were made or sharpened and all sorts of repairing carried on. But the predominant tone of the voice of The Corner was this persistent ringing of metal. It suggested to Donnegan that here was a town filled with men of iron and all the gentler parts of their natures forgotten. An odd place to bring such a woman as Lou Macon, surely!

  He reached the level, and entered the town.

  * * *

  11

  Hunting for news, he went naturally to the news emporium which took the place of the daily paper--namely, he went to the saloons. But on the way he ran through a liberal cross-section of The Corner's populace. First of all, the tents and the ruder shacks. He saw little sheet-iron stoves with the tin dishes piled, unwashed, upon the tops of them when the miners rushed back to their work; broken handles of picks and shovels; worn-out shirts and overalls lay where they had been tossed; here was a flat strip of canvas supported by four four-foot poles and without shelter at the sides, and the belongings of one careless miner tumbled beneath this miserable shelter; another man had striven for some semblance of a home and he had framed a five-foot walk leading up to the closed flap of his tent with stones of a regular size. But nowhere was there a sign of life, and would not be until semidarkness brought the unwilling workers back to the tents.

  Out of this district he passed quickly onto the main street, and here there was a different atmosphere. The first thing he saw was a man dressed as a cowpuncher from belt to spurs--spurs on a miner--but above the waist he blossomed in a frock coat and a silk hat. Around the coat he had fastened his belt, and the shirt beneath the coat was common flannel, open at the throat. He walked, or rather staggered, on the arm of an equally strange companion who was arrayed in a white silk shirt, white flannel trousers, white dancing pumps, and a vast sombrero! But as if this was not sufficient protection for his head, he carried a parasol of the most brilliant green silk and twirled it above his head. The two held a wavering course and went blindly past Donnegan.

  It was sufficiently clear that the storekeeper had followed the gold.

  He noted a cowboy sitting in his saddle while he rolled a cigarette. Obviously he had come in to look things over rather than to share in the mining, and he made the one sane, critical note in the carnival of noise and color. Donnegan began to pass stores. There was the jeweler's; the gent's furnishing; a real estate office--what could real estate be doing on the Young Muddy's desert? Here was the pawnshop, the windows of which were already packed. The blacksmith had a great establishment, and the roar of the anvils never died away; feed and grain and a dozen lunch-counter restaurants. All this had come to The Corner within six weeks.

  Liquor seemed to be plentiful, too. In the entire length of the street he hardly saw a sober man, except the cowboy. Half a dozen in one group pitched silver dollars at a mark. But he was in the saloon district now, and dominant among the rest was the big, unpainted front of a building before which hung an enormous sign:

  LEBRUN'S JOY EMPORIUM

  Donnegan turned in under the sign.

  It was one big room. The bar stretched completely around two sides of it. The floor was dirt, but packed to the hardness of wood. The low roof was supported by a scattering of wooden pillars, and across the floor the gaming tables were spread. At that vast bar not ten men were drinking now; at the crowding tables there were not half a dozen players; yet behind the bar stood a dozen tenders ready to meet the evening rush from the mines. And at the tables waited an equal number of the professional gamblers of the house.

  From the door Donnegan observed these things with one sweeping glance, and then proceeded to transform himself. One jerk at the visor of his cap brought it down over his eyes and covered his face with shadow; a single shrug bunched the ragged coat high around his shoulders, and the shoulders themselves he allowed to drop forward. With his hands in his pockets he glided slowly across the room toward the bar, for all the world a picture of the guttersnipe who had been kicked from pillar to post until self-respect is dead in him. And pausing in his advance, he leaned against one of the pillars and looked hungrily toward the bar.

  He was immediately hailed from behind the bar with: "Hey, you. No tramps in here. Pay and stay in Lebrun's!"

  The command brought an immediate protest. A big fellow stepped from the bar, his sombrero pushed to the back of his head, his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow away from vast hairy forearms. One of his long arms swept out and brought Donnegan to the bar.

  "I ain't no prophet," declared the giant, "but I can spot a man that's dry. What'll you have, bud?" And to the bartender he added: "Leave him be, pardner, unless you're all set for considerable noise in here."

  "Long as his drinks are paid for," muttered the bartender, "here he stays. But these floaters do make me tired!"

  He jabbed the bottle across the bar at Donnegan and spun a glass noisily at him, and the "floater" observed the angry bartender with a frightened side glance, and then poured his drink gingerly. When the glass was half full he hesitated and sought the face of the bartender again, for permission to go on.

  "Fill her up!" commanded the giant. "Fill her up, lad, and drink hearty."

  "I never yet," observed the bartender darkly, "seen a beggar that wasn't a hog."

  At this Donnegan's protector shifted his belt so that the holster came a little more forward on his thigh.

  "Son," he said, "how long you been in these parts?"

  "Long enough," declared the other, and lowered his black brows. "Long enough to be sick of it."

  "Maybe, maybe,
" returned the cowpuncher-miner, "meantime you tie to this. We got queer ways out here. When a gent drinks with us he's our friend. This lad here is my pardner, just now. If I was him I would of knocked your head off before now for what you've said--"

  "I don't want no trouble," Donnegan said whiningly.

  At this the bartender chuckled, and the miner showed his teeth in his disgust.

  "Every gent has got his own way," he said sourly. "But while you drink with Hal Stern you drink with your chin up, bud. And don't forget it. And them that tries to run over you got to run over me."

  Saying this, he laid his large left hand on the bar and leaned a little toward the bartender, but his right hand remained hanging loosely at his side. It was near the holster, as Donnegan noticed. And the bartender, having met the boring glance of the big man for a moment, turned surlily away. The giant looked to Donnegan and observed: "Know a good definition of the word, skunk?"

  "Nope," said Donnegan, brightening now that the stern eye, of the bartender was turned away.

  "Here's one that might do. A skunk is a critter that bites when your back is turned and runs when you look it in the eye. Here's how!"

  He drained his own glass, and Donnegan dexterously followed the example.

  "And what might you be doing around these parts?" asked the big man, veiling his contempt under a mild geniality.

  "Me? Oh, nothing."

  "Looking for a job, eh?"

  Donnegan shrugged.

  "Work ain't my line," he confided.

  "H'm-m-m," said Hal Stern. "Well, you don't make no bones about it."

  "But just now," continued Donnegan, "I thought maybe I'd pick up some sort of a job for a while." He looked ruefully at the palms of his hands which were as tender as the hands of a woman. "Heard a fellow say that Jack Landis was a good sort to work for--didn't rush his men none. They said I might find him here."

  The big man grunted.

  "Too early for him. He don't circulate around much till the sun goes down. Kind of hard on his skin, the sun, maybe. So you're going to work for him?"

  "I was figuring on it."

  "Well, tie to this, bud. If you work for him you won't have him over you."

  "No?"

  "No, you'll have"--he glanced a little uneasily around him--"Lord Nick."

  "Who's he?"

  "Who's he?" The big man started in astonishment. "Sufferin' catamounts! Who is he?" He laughed in a disagreeable manner. "Well, son, you'll find out, right enough!"

  "The way you talk, he don't sound none too good."

  Hal Stern grew anxious. "The way I talk? Have I said anything agin' him? Not a word! He's--he's--well, there ain't ever been trouble between us and there never ain't going to be." He flushed and looked steadily at Donnegan. "Maybe he sent you to talk to me?" he asked coldly.

  But Donnegan's eyes took on a childish wideness.

  "Why, I never seen him," he declared. Hall Stern allowed the muscles of his face to relax. "All right," he said, "they's no harm done. But Lord Nick is a name that ain't handled none too free in these here parts. Remember that!"

  "But how," pondered Donnegan, "can I be working for Lord Nick when I sign up to work under Jack Landis?"

  "I'll tell you how. Nick and Lebrun work together. Split profits. And Nelly Lebrun works Landis for his dust. So the stuff goes in a circle--Landis to Nelly to Lebrun to Nick. That clear?"

  "I don't quite see it," murmured Donnegan.

  "I didn't think you would," declared the other, and snorted his disgust. "But that's all I'm going to say. Here come the boys--and dead dry!"

  For the afternoon was verging upon evening, and the first drift of laborers from the mines was pouring into The Corner. One thing at least was clear to Donnegan: that everyone knew how infatuated Landis had become with Nelly Lebrun and that Landis had not built up an extraordinarily good name for himself.

  * * *

  12

  By the time absolute darkness had set in, Donnegan, in the new role of lady's chaperon, sat before a dying fire with Louise Macon beside him. He had easily seen from his talk with Stern that Landis was a public figure, whether from the richness of his claims or his relations with Lord Nick and Lebrun, or because of all these things; but as a public figure it would be impossible to see him alone in his own tent, and unless Louise could meet him alone half her power over him--supposing that she still retained any--would be lost. Better by far that Landis should come to her than that she should come to him, so Donnegan had rented two tents by the day at an outrageous figure from the enterprising real estate company of The Corner and to this new home he brought the girl.

  She accepted the arrangement with surprising equanimity. It seemed that her father's training had eliminated from her mind any questioning of the motives of others. She became even cheerful as she set about arranging the pack which Donnegan put in her tent. Afterward she cooked their supper over the fire which he built for her. Never was there such a quick house-settling. And by the time it was absolutely dark they had washed the dishes and sat before Lou's tent looking over the night lights of The Corner and hearing the voice of its Great White Way opening.

  She had not even asked why he did not bring her straight to Jack Landis. She had looked into Donnegan's tent, furnished with a single blanket and his canvas kit, and had offered to share her pack with him. And now they sat side by side before the tent and still she asked no questions about what was to come.

  Her silence was to Donnegan the dropping of the water upon the hard rock. He was crumbling under it, and a wild hatred for the colonel rose in him. No doubt that spirit of evil had foreseen all this; and he knew that every moment spent with the girl would drive Donnegan on closer to the accomplishment of the colonel's great purpose--the death of Jack Landis. For the colonel, as Jack's next of kin, would take over all his mining interests and free them at a stroke from the silent partnership which apparently existed with Lord Nick and Lester. One bullet would do all this: and with Jack dead, who else stood close to the girl? It was only necessary that she should not know who sped the bullet home.

  A horrible fancy grew up in Donnegan, as he sat there, that between him and the girl lay a dead body.

  He was glad when the time came and he could tell her that he was going down to The Corner to find Jack Landis and bring him to her. She rose to watch him go and he heard her say "Come soon!"

  It shocked Donnegan into realization that for all her calm exterior she was perfectly aware of the danger of her position in the wild mining camp. She must know, also, that her reputation would be compromised; yet never once had she winced, and Donnegan was filled with wonder as he went down the hill toward the camp which was spread beneath him; for their tents were a little detached from the main body of the town. Behind her gentle eyes, he now felt, and under the softness of her voice, there was the same iron nerve that was in her father. Her hatred could be a deathless passion, and her love also; and the great question to be answered now was, did she truly love Jack Landis?

  The Corner at night was like a scene at a circus. There was the same rush of people, the same irregular flush of lights, the same glimmer of lanterns through canvas, the same air of impermanence. Once, in one of those hushes which will fall upon every crowd, he heard a coyote wailing sharply and far away, as though the desert had sent out this voice to mock at The Corner and all it contained.

  He had only to ask once to discover where Landis was: Milligan's dance hall. Before Milligan's place a bonfire burned from the beginning of dusk to the coming of day; and until the time when that fire was quenched with buckets of water, it was a sign to all that the merriment was under way in the dance hall. If Lebrun's was the sun of the amusement world in The Corner, Milligan's was the moon. Everybody who had money to lose went to Lebrun's. Every one who was out for gayety went to Milligan's. Milligan was a plunger. He had brought up an orchestra which demanded fifteen dollars a day and he paid them that and more. He not only was able to do this, but he established a bar a
t the entrance from which all who entered were served with a free drink. The entrance, also, was not subject to charge. The initial drink at the door was spiced to encourage thirst, so Milligan made money as fast, and far more easily, than if he had been digging it out of the ground.

  To the door of this pleasure emporium came Donnegan. He had transformed himself into the ragged hobo by the jerking down of his cap again, and the hunching of his shoulders. And shrinking past the bar with a hungry sidewise glance, as one who did not dare present himself for free liquor, he entered Milligan's.

  That is, he had put his foot across the threshold when he was caught roughly by the shoulder and dragged to one side. He found himself looking up into the face of a strapping fellow who served Milligan as bouncer. Milligan had an eye for color. Andy Lewis was tolerably well known as a fighting man of parts, who not only wore two guns but could use them both at once, which is much more difficult than is generally understood. But far more than for his fighting parts Milligan hired his bouncer for the sake of his face. It was a countenance made to discourage trouble makers. A mule had kicked Lewis in the chin, and a great white welt deformed his lower lip. Scars of smallpox added to his decorative effect, and he had those extremely bushy brows which for some reason are generally considered to denote ferocity. Now, Donnegan was not above middle height at best, and in his present shrinking attitude he found himself looking up a full head into the formidable face of the bouncer.

  "And what are you doing in here?" asked the genial Andy. "Don't you know this joint is for white folks?"

  "I ain't colored," murmured Donnegan.

  "You took considerable yaller to me," declared Lewis. He straightway chuckled, and his own keen appreciation of his wit softened his expression. "What you want?"